July 31, 2008 by Tim Enright.

The headline this year will read “Aussum Aussie losses title to Sawmill Smoke House”.
 
Today we once again attended the Pig Gig. This is a rib cook-off competition for best in the Midwest. I am sad to say that after a very long reign Aussum Aussie has lost its title as Best Ribs this year. Every year we sample most, if not all of the ribs offered here and this year we were surprised in what we found. Sawmill Smoke House from Freeland, Michigan had a very tender, juicy and flavorful rack of ribs. Aussum Aussie had to lay down their title this year. I do have to add that if you wanted to make a good thing better, you needed to put some of Bar-B-Cutie’s BBQ sauce on top of the Sawmill Smoke House ribs to acquire near perfection.

 
On a sad note the piggy races did not show up this year. We spoke with Event Organizer, Wendy Dore and she informed us that they were booked to participate but did not show up.  We all hope to see the piggys again next year.

As evening came around we decided to head over to a small dive near the Bay City State Park called Mussell Beach Drive-In. We chose this place because it featured “Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream”. We simply love this brand of ice-cream and get it every time we find someplace that serves it. We have been to dozens of these places selling Ashby’s (it is easier now that www.ashbysicecream.com offers a store locator) . We have always been served a generous portion for a fair price, until now. Mussell Beach Drive-In does Ashby’s a REAL injustice. What we were served was somewhat embarrassing.

To begin, they were out of waffle cones. For a beautiful summer evening, I am not sure how they could let this occur but, I guess it can be an honest mistake. To make matters worse, the plain cones they had left were some kind of baby-sized, soft serve cones. When they showed me what they were going to try and perch my beloved ice-cream upon I had to chuckle.  When they asked if I would like a double scoop, I lost it. I laughed and asked if I was on some kind of hidden camera show or something. How in the world was this guy going to pile 2 scoops of ice-cream on this golf tee sized cone?

When I received my single cone, I didn’t trust the balancing act I would have to do to keep from dumping it, so I asked for a bowl to place it in. I was then given a small Styrofoam drinking cup. At this point I was not surprised; they didn’t even spell the word “Mussell” correct in the name of the place.

I do need to make some mention of the park since it is the title of my blog entry.  We stayed at Bay City State Park located in Bay City, Michigan. We enjoyed a very nice stay spent with family. The weather was nice and the county was even kind enough to come through and eliminate the mosquitoes for us.

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July 17, 2008 by Tim Enright.

My wife and I ran over to the Saganing Eagles Landing Casino in Standish, Michigan and guess what….WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!!!

I won $35.00 on a 2-penny slot machine. I put a $5 bill in and got $35 back after only a couple of spins. That was the good part. The bad part was after winning such a huge jackpot, I had to quit. So I was done for the night. This was the 2nd time I won BIG money in one of these machines this year, last time it was on Donald Trump’s dime at his Plaza in Atlantic City. I am sooooo lucky. I usually never win anything.

Ok, back to the camping part. We are now at Outdoor Adventures, Wilderness Resort in Omer, Michigan. Of the Outdoor Adventure Resorts, this is one of our favorites. This will be a working-vacation, as we will continue to drive to work from here. This is a very relaxing place to wind down after work.

But then again, don’t lose track of the most important part of this entire blog entry…. WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!!!

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July 11, 2008 by Tim Enright.

This weekend we are at Petit Park in Clare, Michigan. I adjusted the trailer brakes this week and used this as an excuse to check them out. You see we had to go camping in order to properly test out the brakes. We enjoy coming to this park anyway.

We had just returned from spending a week at Clear Lake State Park up north.  I cleaned out my entire closet in the RV, something that I never do. I always leave a few items in here that I never wear around the house. Well, as you can guess where this is leading, I neglected to put anything back in the RV for this trip. To make matters worse it was an extremely humid evening outside when we arrived at the park to setup camp. I found the clothing that I was wearing had become drenched from just setting up the RV.

With a little laundry soap that we keep on hand, my wife was kind enough to hand wash my clothing. With a small fan and a hair blow-dryer, I was back in business.

A little ingenuity can be a camper’s lifesaver.

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